Transhuman week: exploring the frontiers of human enhancement

September 5, 2012

Wired U.K.‘s Transhuman Week seeks to navigate transhumanist issues through a series of features, galleries and expert guest posts from September 3 to 7.

Transhumanism explores the application of technology and science to enhance human bodies and minds regardless of whether they are perceived to have any disabilities, and extending human life. It may include low-level biohacking, physical augmentation, performance-enhancing drugs and even genetic modification.

The London 2012 Paralympic Games have drawn attention to the role that technology and science can play in overcoming human limitations.

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Would we really want chips implanted into our brains? If it’s proven to be a safe procedure, with benefits apparent to all and a widespread uptake, those choosing to opt out would be putting themselves at a distinct disadvantage. We’ve been augmenting ourselves with technology for quite some time, and I think it would be odd if we didn’t continue to do so.

Gaining quick access to specific information can still be frustrating at times, but I know this will progressively improve (both in UI and search algorithms). Of course, we don’t necessarily become wiser by having any data we want immediately to hand, but it does mean we can longer blame ignorance for the misfortunes that befall us.

Our wisdom and ethical codes are (and will hopefully always be) entirely up to us, and shown in how we conduct our lives. I’d only want this tech to enhance our existing faculties.

When cell phones are the size of red blood cells they will have to be able to link to the brain. There could be millions of them affecting many brain centers. They would be Inexpensive and relatively easy to administer. My guess that could happen from ten to twenty years from now.

The movie “Limitless” was not a metaphor for drug abuse it was
a depiction of what is happening in every field from politics to
hedge fund trading, drug rehab, sports “medicine”, to HIV
cocktails. Human enhancement in the form of not so magic pills.
How does a Hollywood actor go from heroin jail time to the
top of the A list in a short span of time? Low dose AAS cocktails.

I have a phd in AI, so I’m plugged in to technology. But what needs to be said in this conversation is that the human body’s innate mechanisms are already amazing, and if we can understand and expand those… for example, medical studies in canada have shown that motherly touch has a positive effect on the generation of neural stem cells in the hippocampus region of the brain – an area responsible for memory and immune, it also affects the expression of genes that regulate our stress response… stress is the culprit in many diseases processes and aggravates a number of chronic conditions. So, what I’m working on is putting LOVE back into technology… Emotion Oriented Programming http://www.emotionalmachines.com Emotion Common Sense Collective and most recently a model of mind capable of empathy and compassion. We will certainly need these for space exploration, long space flight, but also possible for the general public…

The first transhuman thing I want are the memristors in the hippocampus. I’m having so much trouble remembering the smallest things anymore…and a WiFi CPU somewhere in the pre-frontal cortex will get me online without using the keyboard or the monitor. Can you imagine thinking with the processing power of the Cloud?

…what if we had this memory extension and world knowledge access stuff already, but failed to really use it? Are we just punch drunk on this future idea stuff of brain chips that could boost our memories or give us super human thinking?….. (I know I get easily excited about all the ‘what if’ future stuff myself, so please appreciate this is nothing more than a rant to myself).

I recently read this paper from 1982 when they were talking about what life would be like in 2012 and flying cars to work and yet no real mention of how computers and cell phones would change our daily life. The silver clothes and idea of fashion was so off….. Like we wear shiny reflective almost space suit like things most of the time…Ha!…. and no ties of course. Here I sit thinking how interesting what things seem almost the same as 1982 related to fashion or even cars we drive to work and wonder how wrong we may be for 30 years from now on some things and then totally miss other things like email/cell/computer/internet.

..I am trying to picture myself in the near future and how I will use technology to maximize my thinking or brain power. I picture using a device like google glass where I can access the cloud faster/better and with the visual overlay ability to do this as I move around & interact the world (instead of how I use computers now; 90% at my desk at work or home only and then about 10% from my phone on the go). My gut says these ideas like having a chip inside your brain to improve memory or access the cloud sound cool, but may be way farther off than I wish or……. I need to understand what it would actually do for me. Maybe the access to that cloud/data has already been here for a while….not as fast or as simple as in the future of course. I would guess that we see the portable gooey interfaces develop first that visually connect us to our cell phones. Maybe the GUI develop so much better/faster than what we are expecting or have now and bypass the need for brain chip surgery (costs, risks + wait time). Do we even need or want a chip in our brains if we can see this data into our brains through google glasses in 12 months from now? Do we want a chip in our brains that could change how we feel or think now? or do we want access to info faster/better and on the go? Is being smarter just access to more info and more experiences and ways to benefit from that info? Friends of mine that play trivia at the bar and want instant access to unlimited fun facts and figures, if they had this chip to have the world’s data at a 1 second response time, does that really make them smarter? I think it makes them a human encyclopedia for sure…but I doubt it makes them wise or invent the next great thing.

Maybe we get these devices and only use them for 20% of their potential?
For example: I can carry a tape recorder the size of a pen now that is solid-state and costs less than $20 and would record more notes than I could even think to recall, but we don’t use it to keep notes to support our aging memory (at least I don’t and think I should sometimes…. note to self…remember to buy recorder to remember that….oh nevermind). I guess when you ask if I can imagine thinking with the processing power of the cloud…..YES, I guess we have that already. I am just trying to get over the idea of expecting others to want to add a chip to your brain, especially if you could bypass that with a set of external chips (hidden in glasses or watches, or other small/portable devices). I think this idea of a chip goes in our brain and then bingo we can recall anything we ever thought of like a video recording of our life, or access to the cloud of a world full of data and answers seems so cool, but in a way I have that now and don’t break out my video recordings to watch again. I do access the cloud for more and more things, but if I had 10x or 100x the facts and figures would I know how to assemble that info into something useful. All this talk of technology upgrades, are we always stuck with Human emotions 1.0. As we grow as a world where our hierarchy of needs goes way past the survival instincts that got us here, can we upgrade our ethics and our hard wired emotions to keep pace with everything else? If they created a chip that would improve your wisdom, or improve your ethics or improve your emotional response to high stress things would you trust it? I would argue no.

Although I think the first thing I’d want is nanobots repairing any damaged neurons due to age or injury. This may cause some people to effectively ‘wake up’ after such treatment (or perhaps we all will?)